


Follows Soft the Sun

by saltylikecrait



Series: Follows Soft the Sun [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, In which the galaxy is a happier place, Prince Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: Standing in front of her door with a bouquet of gerberas in his arm, Finn did not feel like a prince. Instead, he felt like a young man that was just beginning his life full of optimism and hope.





	Follows Soft the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> A contribution for the latest Finnrey Friday on Tumblr. I'm not big on writing one shots, but the plot fishies were biting this week. I may decide to make this a series of one-shots if further ideas for this AU comes ups.

Finn never believed in love at first sight. To him, a simple glance would never be enough to really understand what a person is like, let alone if they would be someone that he could fall in love with. But now he’s starting to wonder if he was wrong about this assumption.

He’s holding a bouquet of multicolored gerberas and feeling a bit nervous about giving them to the intended recipient. He will never make fun of anyone that is nervous about the same thing again.

The intended recipient is Rey, a gardener under the employment of his family. He’s not sure if it’s appropriate to give employees gifts, let alone ones that signify affection far beyond friendship, since Rey might only be nice to him because she feels like she has to. Finn really hopes she doesn’t think that way; in any case, she’s never acted like it.

That, and she was the one that invited him to her home for a weekend lunch…

Of course, there’s also the issue that his family might not approve of the heir to the throne courting a common gardener…

Finn is the eldest son of the king and queen on a quiet, temperate planet. While he understands the importance of diplomacy, Finn finds himself often frustrated and tired of politics. Unless he has to go to a formal luncheon, he prefers to spend his early afternoons in the quiet of his rooms.

The first time he had noticed her, he had been shocked to see someone climbing up his balcony on a gray afternoon. Actually, it had startled him to the point that he reached for his blaster, just in case it was someone that meant him harm.

To his shock, a young woman with hair styled in three peculiar buns, climbed over his balcony railing and began to water the hanging plants that decorated it.

He had realized quickly that she wasn’t an assassin, rather, just a gardener. He had never seen her before, but then again, the grounds were huge, if she wasn’t a new hire then he very likely could have missed her by never being in the same area she was working in.

She had startled when she saw him staring outside the glass doors of his dining nook. A blush had crept on her face and she bowed quickly to him. Then she turned to climb back down.

Finn had opened the door and poked his head outside. “Hey, you don’t have to leave just because I’m here,” he had said. “Don’t stop your work because of me.”

She didn’t look him in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I didn’t know you were here. I’ve just been assigned to the balconies and I haven’t been given a schedule…”

Her accent told had him that she was not from around here, must have been an off-worlder that came to his planet to find work. “Huh? Oh, no, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” he had said. “I eat my lunch around this time in my rooms, but I don’t mind if you work while I’m here. Not at all.”

She had looked at his eyes this time and Finn got a better look at her face. She looked to be about his age - someone that had just recently entered the years of adulthood – with lovely hazel eyes and freckles dotting her face. On her cheek was a small smudge of dirt that she had probably acquired while doing her work.

He had thought she was cute, to say the least. 

“What’s your name?” he had finally asked.

“Rey,” she had answered. “Just Rey.”

There was a story there, but Finn had decided to leave it for now. He knew that not everyone liked being asked personal questions by strangers.

Finn had seen her nearly every day after that, except when he had to spend his lunch elsewhere and on the weekends when she was off work.

It had seemed like he learned something new about her every day. He had learned that she had been abandoned by her parents on a junkyard planet where she spent her days scavenging for scrap parts in exchange for food. That she waited for ten years for her parents to come back and when they didn’t she joined a smuggler and his crew, offering her services as a mechanic for a year in exchange for transportation off the planet.

“But then I realized that I found a family with Han and Chewbacca and everyone,” she had explained. “They didn’t want me to leave them either. So Han and his wife – maybe you know her, she’s a senator – they took me in.”

“What happened?” Finn had asked as he lounged in a chair while she watered the hanging plants. Their talks had become a daily thing and they had begun to see each other as friends. He had heard in passing that Senator Organa and Han Solo had taken in another kid, but he had no idea that Rey was that kid.

“Their son had… issues.” Rey had sighed. “He’s about ten years older than me and he wasn’t home very much, but when he was, he wasn’t very nice to me. Well, he ignored me mostly.”

“So you left because of him?”

“Oh!” she had exclaimed. “No! I wanted to try to strike it out on my own. That was just a year ago. I had the skills to become a mechanic, but Leia taught me all about gardening and I took a couple of classes and got some references and then Leia told me that the palace here had an opening… Well, I love gardening and the pay is good enough for me to afford my own place. I do visit Han and Leia each month, though.”

And then he had learned the little things about her. That her favorite flowers were Gerbera daisies, that she always seemed to have a smudge of dirt on her face, that she still rations her food because Jakku instilled the fear of hunger in her even when there was nothing to fear…

She had listened to him too. Listened to him when he was trying to talk out diplomacy or policy issues and ask him questions. She had never looked annoyed when he told her how afraid he was of not being the leader that others expected him to be. He had also realized that some of his issues were trivial compared to what others were going through – there were children like Rey starving all over the galaxy after all…

The first time she had called him by his name rather than as “Your Highness” was when Finn had realized that he had fallen in love with Rey.

Today, he was meeting her at her apartment in a neighborhood close to the palace. It was a place that young adults tended to live in. It wasn’t the most beautiful or luxurious, but it had an artistic charm to it and full of people Finn and Rey’s age that were trying to work their way up in the world.

Standing in front of her door with a bouquet of gerberas in his arm, Finn did not feel like a prince. Instead, he felt like a young man that was beginning his life full of optimism and hope.

And when Rey opened the door and smiled at him, his world suddenly felt as warm as sunshine. He wasn’t Prince Finn today. Today, he was just _Finn_ and Rey was just _Rey._

Court opinions be damned. He was going to see where this went and he was going to enjoy every moment of it.


End file.
